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My desktop PC has an older mobo with two 70gb SATA HDDs now (runs XP).

I now have a much larger SATA HDD (1TB) that I'd like to use as my C drive (after copying the C drive to the new one) so I unplug my D drive and reboot just to be sure it'll work with one drive (XP still boots, everything works).

I then plug in the new 1TB drive to the same connectors that my D drive was connected to but it doesn't detect the new HDD and XP won't boot with it attached. It just starts the XP screen, no motion on the bar graph, see quick BSOD and it reboots. Boot menu only shows one HDD.
I've looked in the bios too, not seeing the new HDD.

I thought SATA HDDs were plug and play but apparently not, or not here/ today.
Any ideas? Might my older mobo not support a drive that large?

check for a newer BIOS for the mobo...it may be that the older version doesn't recognize the 1TB drive.

also, check and see if the new drive is recognized if you plug it into the current boot drive's sata port...just to rule out possibilities.

XP does have a size limit somewhere just above 1.5 Tb, but that's not your issue.

What b-man1 said. As is common when drive density doubles, older systems may not recognize the drive. If you're lucky the latest BIOS update for the mobo may fix it.

Another possibility is, if this is a 1st gen SATA mobo, it may not support modern drives running at SATA 2 speeds. Most drives have a jumper to force them to use SATA 1. Try that and see if it works.

Hope this helps.

I have seen this and the SATA2 to SATA1 usually fixes the situation. Like FP mentioned there should be a jumper that forces the drive into SATA1 mode.

if all else fails, you can get a PCI sata controller and throw that in...that should bypass the mobo limitations...just a last resort option.

OK, some good ideas. I'll play with it some more tonight.


Worse case senerio, I could just say screw it and do an upgrade (mobo, cpu, memory, WAY cheaper than a new Dell btw).

From what I found posted elsewhere http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/archive ... 52000.html, I think it's a problem where the old HDDs are slower (made in 2004) and in what I saw, it's mentioned to jumper the HDD to slow it down HOWEVER, there is no jumper anywhere on my new HDD.

Hitachi's site sucks too. I guess I can e-mail their tech support and see how that goes. I have no written documentation nor do I see anything that relates at Hitachi's websight (site address taken from new HDD).

I think it's going to be more of a hassle than I thought it'd be.


I don't even mind the idea of starting fresh, re-install XP on the new HDD BUT I still need to access the files on my old HDDs somehow to copy them over.

What about your mobo's BIOS?

Evil, download the documentation for the drive. There's always a jumper to force SATA1 speeds. There's no jumper clip for it though - you need to rummage through your goody box for one and the ones on the sata drives are sometimes smaller than the older IDE jumpers.

So far I'm not even seeing my drive listed by PN or SN there. I've carefully examined the new drive, no extra pins to be jumped anywhere. My 2 older drives have extra pins and jumpers so I do know what I'm looking for.

I'll e-mail them.

I'll check for newer Bios too but I think it's more likely to be HDD speed. The new one has it written 3.0 gb sec but I don't see that written on the older ones.

I'm taking b-man1's advice and ordered a PCI sata controller from Newegg. From what I've read, that should do it w/o any more BS.

You're probably better off, yeah. You'll also probably get better throughout than with the old controller.

I'm still going to email Hitachi's customer support to see what they say about jumpers and check for a Bios update but I'm hoping that the pci sata controller will allow me to copy my C drive to the new one.

Do you think that the new drive (after copied and then boot able) will run normally by itself with the existing motherboard sata controller or do you think the new drives speed may not be compatible with my old mobo ? I think it's the speed difference between the drives that's my present problem.

i think the problem is the mobo not recognizing the faster sata jumper setting...the two drives being different speeds shouldn't cause a problem. did you try running just the new drive by itself? that would rule out a speed mismatch problem with the older/slower drive.

regarding the jumper, the ones i have seen are much smaller and more annoying than the regular sized jumpers. they were about 1/3 the height of a standard jumper...very tiny.

can you take any pics of the drive and post them for us to see?

just found this:

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php? ... rd_drive/2

"The Hitachi DeskStar 7K1000 is also missing the jumper pins for SATA 1.5 - 3.0 GB/s operation."


that sucks. ...looks like the sata controller is your only option, unless you want to take it as an opportunity to do that upgrade.